States should join hands to fight inflation: West Bengal FM

Siliguri, Jan 18 (ANI): West Bengal Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta has said States should join hands to fight inflation.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a function here on Sunday, Dasgupta said: "The invoking of a tough commodities prices act to check spiralling price rise would succeed only if all states acted together.

"If the Essential Commodities (Act) has to be enforced, the problem is if only one state does it in an isolated manner there is a repercussion from the trading units. So all concerned states need to act in a coordinated and united manner, so that can only be done by the coordinated role of the government," he added.

The prices of basic commodities mainly sugar, pulses and potato has touched a new high. The wholesale price inflation surged to more than a year's high of 7.31 per cent in December on higher food prices.

The rise was driven by near 20 percent jump in food prices, which rose on weak monsoon rains and flooding in parts of the country, but inflation in manufacturing products picked up to 5.2 percent from 4 percent in November, a sign that inflationary pressures were spreading to other sectors of the economy.

The government ordered this week the sale of stocked grain and extended duty-free sugar imports by another nine months, hoping to rein in high food inflation.

Last year, the worst monsoon in 37 years ravaged cane fields, creating a sugar shortage for the second consecutive year. (ANI)